Do my lines and coloring look better (update)

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Hm does this look better thank the first one I did?

You are still going too dark with a lot of your color choices for the hair and clothing. Remember that your line art needs to be clearly visible over your coloring. Remember - contrast, contrast, contrast.

Don't think too literally about what color an object or a piece of clothing is. Your job as an artist is to communicate the ESSENCE of something and make that visually appealing. Depending on the surrounding colors and the environment the character is in, you can use brown, blue, or even purple, and depending on the surrounding colors, those will still read a 'black' to a viewer.

Don't be afraid to color pick from images done by professional artists. It can help you a lot when you are learning, and can surprise you to see what actual colors are being used. Like that character whose hair you thought was black is actually colored using blues and purples.

Do this exercise as well - after you've flatted colors onto your drawing, get up and stand back from the computer screen, or reduce your image to 30%, and see if you can still make out details in the hair and clothing. If not, you've gone too dark and not used enough contrast.

[MaiMai]

The coloring is okay, but it's still muddy looking, probably because of the black values you're using in the dark parts of the outfit. I would imagine giving depth to coloring would be harder with a mouse, so you might want to change up the values so that it's easier to work with the form?

I've done a lot of flat coloring myself and I tend to use a lot of tinted colors with light values. I have an example of my own work where I did minimal shading and did a lot of airbrushing like yours, but I did my best to make sure everything was clearly defined. It's kind of like what LWR is talking about in the post above.

(Quick suggestion, it's best if you trim down your signature since it might be better to make a WIP thread and link it in your signature instead. Having all that info in your signature causes too much scrolling and people might not bother to read the actual content of your post otherwise.)

[NaSetsu]

Hm does this look better thank the first one I did?

You are still going too dark with a lot of your color choices for the hair and clothing. Remember that your line art needs to be clearly visible over your coloring. Remember - contrast, contrast, contrast.

Don't think too literally about what color an object or a piece of clothing is. Your job as an artist is to communicate the ESSENCE of something and make that visually appealing. Depending on the surrounding colors and the environment the character is in, you can use brown, blue, or even purple, and depending on the surrounding colors, those will still read a 'black' to a viewer.

Don't be afraid to color pick from images done by professional artists. It can help you a lot when you are learning, and can surprise you to see what actual colors are being used. Like that character whose hair you thought was black is actually colored using blues and purples.

Do this exercise as well - after you've flatted colors onto your drawing, get up and stand back from the computer screen, or reduce your image to 30%, and see if you can still make out details in the hair and clothing. If not, you've gone too dark and not used enough contrast.

*Sigh* Okay what about this one does it look better, I tried brightening everything up again since you said it still looked dark.. Oh but did I do good on the skin at least...right? Wheres a tablet when you need one I hate this...

[NaSetsu]

The coloring is okay, but it's still muddy looking, probably because of the black values you're using in the dark parts of the outfit. I would imagine giving depth to coloring would be harder with a mouse, so you might want to change up the values so that it's easier to work with the form?

I've done a lot of flat coloring myself and I tend to use a lot of tinted colors with light values. I have an example of my own work where I did minimal shading and did a lot of airbrushing like yours, but I did my best to make sure everything was clearly defined. It's kind of like what LWR is talking about in the post above.

(Quick suggestion, it's best if you trim down your signature since it might be better to make a WIP thread and link it in your signature instead. Having all that info in your signature causes too much scrolling and people might not bother to read the actual content of your post otherwise.)

I tried to take some of the colors from the character you made hope you don't mind and I made three different versions. Do they look a little better? The third one has two sides where I try to make the left side a little lighter..

[mitoky]

The shade is blurred too much and there is too less contrast.
When you chose color, try making the base color a tad brighter & shading color a bit darker from each other (more diffrence)
When you then shade, try to not blut the shade too much since its makes it simply look like muddy colors instead of shaded. Also, when you chose colors, try to not just go down the color for the shade darker, but maybe too a bit over to other colors (example, brown hair with a tad orange-ish shine (simply put, experiment))

Even if you take all out advices here into account, you wont change overnight. So try to be as patient with yourself as possible.

Good luck!~

[NaSetsu]

The shade is blurred too much and there is too less contrast.
When you chose color, try making the base color a tad brighter & shading color a bit darker from each other (more diffrence)
When you then shade, try to not blut the shade too much since its makes it simply look like muddy colors instead of shaded. Also, when you chose colors, try to not just go down the color for the shade darker, but maybe too a bit over to other colors (example, brown hair with a tad orange-ish shine (simply put, experiment))

Even if you take all out advices here into account, you wont change overnight. So try to be as patient with yourself as possible.

Good luck!~

Omg you don't know how happy you just made me, though everyone kept telling me it looks dark, muddy, ugly, off and so on. No one actually seemed to explain what I was doing wrong in depth, telling me what's exactly wrong and that I'm blurring it to much now makes me understand what is wrong. I was like so seriously about to cry and give up but now knowing the exact threats that's making it not look good I honestly have to thank you. But though I would like to ask do you or do you know someone who can give me a tutorial on how I can do my coloring and shading with a mouse. All the tutorials are for tablet or the ones for mouse don't exactly teach you. If you don't know anyone can you make one for me, that would be greatly appreciated!

[MaiMai]

The reason why there aren't a lot of tutorials to color with a mouse is because, in principle, coloring with a mouse is technically not different with a tablet. You're trying to aim for a certain look, but you're just using a different tool.

But yeah, be patient with yourself, like mitoky says. It took me forever to understand what I've been doing wrong and I'm still learning even right now. Improvement doesn't happen overnight.

I asked this before, but I don't think you answered it. Is there a certain style of shading you're going for? Like, could you cite an artist that you like and maybe we could work from there (I'm also coloring your lineart to kind of show you what I do)

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Omg you don't know how happy you just made me, though everyone kept telling me it looks dark, muddy, ugly, off and so on. No one actually seemed to explain what I was doing wrong in depth, telling me what's exactly wrong and that I'm blurring it to much now makes me understand what is wrong. I was like so seriously about to cry and give up but now knowing the exact threats that's making it not look good I honestly have to thank you. But though I would like to ask do you or do you know someone who can give me a tutorial on how I can do my coloring and shading with a mouse. All the tutorials are for tablet or the ones for mouse don't exactly teach you. If you don't know anyone can you make one for me, that would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, you're making good progress. Like the others have said, don't stress over it too much - change will come with practice. You are already far along just by seeking out and accepting advice and trying to incorporate them. You've improved a lot in just this thread. Your latest coloring example is much better. The skin tone is definitely improved.

I hope you don't mind, but did a quick color over your original linework to show you what is possible: (And how awesome your drawing is with just a bit of different coloring.)

One thing I did was drop a Neutral Gray (50%) into the background, so that you can see the "true" value of the colors. In RGB, this color is 125,125,125. When you color on a plain white background, or a black background, your perception of the colors is alternated, and it can cause you to pick too dark or too light colors.

I wanted to show you that you can use colors like brown for the uniform and still have it read as black, and how you can use yellows and creams on things like a white shirt to give it definition and life and still have it look white.

Another thing I did was stick to mostly sharp edges like mitoky suggested to you to avoid the blurry and muddy look. I did this with a mouse - use the lasso tool in Paint Tool SAI to select areas and then flood fill them with the Bucket tool. I did this and just followed your original lines for the most part. You can see that just by following your lines and putting in sharp shadows of a contrasting color, you can make all that original work you did pop. You can go back on another layer and do that same thing for highlights. Just trace the shape of the area for the shadow or highlight and then fill it. (That is the secret to coloring with a tablet OR a mouse - the lasso tool! Use the polygonal lasso tool for more control.)

I see in your latest examples you are using a darker shadow on the hair to separate it, which is good, you just need to pick colors with more contrast to each other.

Keep it up. The drawing is the hard part, so you're far ahead there - now you can have fun with the coloring! Right now, focus on making sure you have good contrast between your shadow, highlight, and base colors, and using selections with the lasso tool to make your shading sharp edged and refined. Thumbs up.

[mitoky]

I agree with MaiMai, the tool itself doenst matters as the tutorial focus mainly on how to draw something and not with what. It is with no doubt harder with a mouse though.
I cant say exactly what art style you are going for, but i think you are going for a soft shaded art style. (if you have an example of the way you wish to color, please do show it)

But lets assume you wnat to go for soft shading (soft shading roughly explained is an art style where some parts are blured, making it look softer. Example is here)

First of all, to get there you need to start at the beginning: knowing how to chose colors and where to put it.
For how to chose colors, thats usually to the users liking. Generally though, choosing colors like in the picture here is nice to make it look more alive. Also, more than one shading color is usually recommended.
When you have that down, you can start thinking of where the light would fall/the shade would be.
Afterwards you can start placing it.
Since you are using a mouse, i would recommend first putting the shade down and not blur it right away, to first get the contrast down. (technically like cell shading (cell shade: not blured shading))
Afterwards, when you have most colors down you can start to blur. What is important is not to every corner, but simply where it would "look right". This is the hardest part as it requires experience, so please dont be frustated when it wont work the first time! When you blur, too keep the shape of the body in mind (ex: leg is more roud, so blurring it makes sense, while light falling fomr the chin down to the chest, making a shade, doenst requires as much blurring and is more sharper at the edges)
An example of the process is here.

I hope i would help a bit!
An small additional advice, look up "speedpaint mouse" on youtube and watch the process of some, sometimes seeing simply how someone works helps to figure out own ways how to use tools to get the wanted look.

[NaSetsu]

The reason why there aren't a lot of tutorials to color with a mouse is because, in principle, coloring with a mouse is technically not different with a tablet. You're trying to aim for a certain look, but you're just using a different tool.

But yeah, be patient with yourself, like mitoky says. It took me forever to understand what I've been doing wrong and I'm still learning even right now. Improvement doesn't happen overnight.

I asked this before, but I don't think you answered it. Is there a certain style of shading you're going for? Like, could you cite an artist that you like and maybe we could work from there (I'm also coloring your lineart to kind of show you what I do)

Well I'm going for a soft cell shading I think it is, I want to keep the anime aspect of it but when I was younger I practiced digital art. But a lot of people said my coloring was to bright so I toned it down, and I think I toned it down too much. But looking at the tutorials and helps from everyone, tommorow I'll give my coloring another good go.

[NaSetsu]

Omg you don't know how happy you just made me, though everyone kept telling me it looks dark, muddy, ugly, off and so on. No one actually seemed to explain what I was doing wrong in depth, telling me what's exactly wrong and that I'm blurring it to much now makes me understand what is wrong. I was like so seriously about to cry and give up but now knowing the exact threats that's making it not look good I honestly have to thank you. But though I would like to ask do you or do you know someone who can give me a tutorial on how I can do my coloring and shading with a mouse. All the tutorials are for tablet or the ones for mouse don't exactly teach you. If you don't know anyone can you make one for me, that would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, you're making good progress. Like the others have said, don't stress over it too much - change will come with practice. You are already far along just by seeking out and accepting advice and trying to incorporate them. You've improved a lot in just this thread. Your latest coloring example is much better. The skin tone is definitely improved.

I hope you don't mind, but did a quick color over your original linework to show you what is possible: (And how awesome your drawing is with just a bit of different coloring.)

One thing I did was drop a Neutral Gray (50%) into the background, so that you can see the "true" value of the colors. In RGB, this color is 125,125,125. When you color on a plain white background, or a black background, your perception of the colors is alternated, and it can cause you to pick too dark or too light colors.

I wanted to show you that you can use colors like brown for the uniform and still have it read as black, and how you can use yellows and creams on things like a white shirt to give it definition and life and still have it look white.

Another thing I did was stick to mostly sharp edges like mitoky suggested to you to avoid the blurry and muddy look. I did this with a mouse - use the lasso tool in Paint Tool SAI to select areas and then flood fill them with the Bucket tool. I did this and just followed your original lines for the most part. You can see that just by following your lines and putting in sharp shadows of a contrasting color, you can make all that original work you did pop. You can go back on another layer and do that same thing for highlights. Just trace the shape of the area for the shadow or highlight and then fill it. (That is the secret to coloring with a tablet OR a mouse - the lasso tool! Use the polygonal lasso tool for more control.)

I see in your latest examples you are using a darker shadow on the hair to separate it, which is good, you just need to pick colors with more contrast to each other.

Keep it up. The drawing is the hard part, so you're far ahead there - now you can have fun with the coloring! Right now, focus on making sure you have good contrast between your shadow, highlight, and base colors, and using selections with the lasso tool to make your shading sharp edged and refined. Thumbs up.

Oohh, thank you. I hope you don't mind but I would like to keep your color pallete in my computer for future refrence. I want to try your techniques as well and try not to blur it in to the point it looks muddy. I think I'll be a little more successful tommorow thanks to everyone's kind critiques throughout the day.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Oohh, thank you. I hope you don't mind but I would like to keep your color pallete in my computer for future refrence.

No problem. That's why I kept those color swatches on there for you, so you could grab them easily if you wished. Looking forward to seeing your next improvement!

[YonYonYon]

Your lines look better! Now try to make them in different sizes. The broader forms being bolder, the fine details being thinner. You also can try colored lines for more light and airy effect, like, for hair.

As for the coloring and shading, I'd recommend sticking to cell shading. Use the line and bucket tools, first outlining your desired shadows and then filling them with desired colors. Trying soft painting look with a mouse will just wreck your wrist. If you want to add something soft, use gradients.

[TheUsernameIsTaken]

Due to the post by YonYonYon, I forgot to mention something.

If you want to have variety in line size, use the pressure tool on the lineart layer and reduce/increase sizes on pressure points of the lines, it may make your lines look sharp so play around by adding more pressure points or making more curves.

[MaiMai]

Redacted